Dennis DeYoung shares his personal connection to Notre Dame Cathedral

The former Styx frontman writes on Facebook that his "association with the church began in 1993 when I began writing a musical based on the Victor Hugo novel... It was produced and staged first in Nashville in 1997 and again in 2008 in Chicago."

DeYoung adds that he's visited the church three times -- and that it has no equal. "While in Rome we went to Christmas Eve midnight mass at Saint Peter's Basilica. The differences between Notre Dame and Saint Peter's [are] startling. Notre Dame's interior is dark and austere reflecting the Gothic architecture of the era in which it was built, the Middle Ages. I have walked the stone spiral staircase to the bell tower to see first hand where the Hunchback was purported to live. The view of Paris is breathtaking. The bells are imposing. But the cathedral's most beautiful aspect is the stained glass, the rose windows. These massive circles of light are an oasis of brilliant red and blue in an otherwise oppressive windowless structure."